If Every Journey…

Posted on June 13, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 10

Bridge over Bear Creek: Photo by Noelle

If every journey started with a bridge we would know the moment we crossed over into something new. We’d know when we’d left the familiar and wandered into an unknown land. If every journey began with a bridge, midway across we could ponder which of the two sides looked better and which we would prefer. We could stand over the chasm or the river or the valley and consider calmly our progress and feel the distance we’d come. If every journey started with a bridge, there’d be that moment, before we stepped upon the first planks, where we could decide if we even wanted to cross. If every journey started with a bridge it is likely there are many paths we would never have taken and many journeys we would have missed. If every journey started with a bridge our cautious, logical mind very likely would have stayed home, more often then hiked onward.

Sometimes tripping off a blind ridge or down a dank rabbit hole is the best thing that can happen to us. No time to ponder or decide. No chance to consider all of the ramifications. We might discover that we are not these prescribed lives with planned goals and agendas. Going in through the out door or slipping on a banana peel, might open our eyes that we are so much more than habits and due dates. That we are magic and light and a creative tour de force that would’ve left Da Vinci weeping.

Falling into the unknown is what we were meant for. Not to organize it all, but to just live. Right now, with nothing but our wits.

Dying Grace: Photo Poem 45

Posted on June 10, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 16

Last years art, waiting on new spring: Photo by Noelle

For my fortieth birthday my colleagues at work gave me a party with black balloons and a wheelchair. I’m normally a person with a sense of humor, but I had watched this parade with colleagues before me. I work with mostly women. We have a habit of telling each other stories of how our time is past as we age. The best years behind us. We’re used up and lost our sex appeal. Men don’t do this to us and they don’t do it to each other. We do it to ourselves. I smiled and thanked everyone, but I knew in that moment, that I would live differently. That I would not see aging as a cross to bear, but an immense opportunity.

I look at this leaf dead, fragile, used up and am filled with its beauty and grace. Even dead, passed its season and it’s still showing the world what it can do. What it has to give. Aging isn’t about years, it’s about perspective. It’s seeing beauty where no one else would think to look. That isn’t weakness, that’s power. In that power is the possibility to transform. To embrace death when it comes and know you are about to pull out your best work yet.

Seeking Freedom: Photo Poem 44

Posted on June 9, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Freedom: Photo by Noelle

I wandered out of the crowd, thinking others would follow. When the wind lifted me, I found I was alone. The sadness lasted but a moment, for the view of the land and the sky filled my heart full.

Bridge Beauty: Photo Poem 43

Posted on June 6, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Flaky, rotten, beautiful decay: Photo by Noelle

I can’t resist rotten, rusty, decay. There is so much beauty in what is broken and falling apart. Makes one wonder why we fight so hard our own unraveling.

Little Gem: Covered in Shit

Posted on June 4, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 4

Free Bing Photos

This is re-posted from Jeff Foster’s Quotes page on Facebook. Simply beautiful.

“I remember, early one morning several years ago, while working as a home carer, I found myself washing faeces off a man’s giant, swollen testicles. He was dying of cancer which had spread throughout his testicles and prostate, and in the night he had defecated himself and rolled all around in the mess. We laughed a lot together and we chatted about football and the latest news stories as I cleaned him up. He could barely move, he was so sore and swollen everywhere. He was myself in disguise.

He had a few weeks to live, but he was so alive, so in the here-and-now, without a trace of self-pity. There was no loss of dignity there – there was just what was happening in the moment. He had somehow found a way to deeply accept his circumstances, even though his life had not turned out the way he had dreamed when he was younger and he had time to dream. It took over two hours to get him ready for his day, to hoist him out of his dirty bed, to get him toileted and dressed and into his favourite chair. He didn’t live for long after that. But I will always remember him.

Even when covered in our own shit and without a tomorrow, we are nothing less than divine.”

~ Jeff Foster

Squatter’s House: Photo Poem 43

Posted on June 3, 2014 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Abandoned Factory in Hearldsberg, CA. This is the view from a squatter's bed: Photo by Noelle

Abandoned Factory in Healdsberg, CA. This is the view from a someone’s make-shift bed on the factory dock: Photo by Noelle

I sat next to the bed of a someone who is living in this abandoned factory, to take this photo. It is curious to see what another sees as they come to rest at the end of their day. In every life there is beauty and drifts of light. We each see the world from our own perspective and sometimes even in dire corners are unexpected views.

Around the Bend

Posted on May 31, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 9

Bear Creek Lake east reservoir trail: Photo by Noelle

As I get older I understand the value of taking the turn in the road. To go around the bend and see what’s up ahead and expose oneself to what is wholly unfamiliar. These are the points past what you usually travel. I’ve found little wineries this way and farmer’s markets, on what I thought were dead end roads. Old train cars left in the middle of deserts and wood sculptures whittled by hand from stumps. Mostly, I’ve discovered myself. Versions of me I hadn’t seen in awhile or new shades of the me I thought I knew. I can’t fall back on the familiar or the tried and true, when I take the trail that winds mysteriously into a wood. I have to re-invent, if just a little. Lost I pull out my best skills and wield a craft I didn’t know I possessed. I see the world with different eyes, and dig deeper into pockets for penny treasures I hadn’t found reason to use. There’s power in facing the unknown you. It makes your insides worldly, in much the same way traveling abroad does. It expands your view on who you think you are.

Sacredness of Cacti

Posted on May 28, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 2

Hedgehog cacti on Green Mountain: Photo by Noelle

The further on my path I travel, the more captivated I am with the patterns that appear in the mist. There is a sacredness to everything from leaf to the milking of cows.

“There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.” Pythagoras

Leaping

Posted on May 14, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 6

Walking bridge at Clement Park: Photo by Noelle

Not everyone at the edge is leaping towards death. They aren’t all desperately escaping grief and depression. Some of us come to the edge to see who we are in the air. Then the water. The chance to leap, a joy hungered for. For surely, there is exhilaration in risking everything to become who you truly are. In the quiet corners of our lives we daydream of how water transforms.

Scraps and Pieces

Posted on May 9, 2014 by noellevignola Standard 4

Encaustic on wax paper: Collage by Noelle

We’re all made up of scraps and pieces – some bright and colorful as peacock feathers, while others dull as mud. Separately, maybe nothing much, but thrown together within you – beautiful.

Celebrate your ragged edges and your patched up holes. You are, at once, as common as a white button and as wild as the Helix nebula exploding in the constellation of Aquarius.